Lewis Brantz (–1838) was a trader in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...

; a ship captain; and the first president of the Baltimore and Port Deposit Railroad, part of the first rail link between

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and points south. Born around 1768 in Württemberg, Germany, Brantz was educated in Switzerland. In 1784, the 16-year-old emigrated to Baltimore. The next year, Brantz led a group of other German immigrants to Nash's Station (today's

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) via

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, where they commissioned riverboats and then sailed them down the

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and up the

Cumberland River The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 river drains almost of southern Kentucky and ...

to their destination. Brantz then led another group back to Baltimore. Nearly 50 years later, his heir

Brantz Mayer Brantz Mayer (September 27, 1809 – February 23, 1879) was an American writer, lawyer, and historian. In 1844, he founded the Maryland Historical Society, which is today the oldest cultural institution in the U.S. state of Maryland. Early life ...

translated his trip diary from German and published it as "Memoranda of a Journey in the Western Parts of the United States of America, in 1785." Brantz himself returned to Pittsburgh in 1790 and painted the earliest known image of the city. Brantz later became a merchant captain, sailing his ships to Europe and the Eastern and Western Indies for 20 years. With

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, with whom he had emigrated from Germany, he formed the Mayer & Brantz trading company in Baltimore, which was most active from 1802 and 1820. In 1808 and 1809,

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ordered some French books from the company. Brantz also charted the waters around Baltimore and wrote a meteorological book based on weather observations between 1817 and 1837. Between 1828 and 1838, he sailed to China, South America, and Mexico, where he lived for several years. In the mid-1830s, he became president of the Baltimore and Port Deposit Railroad, a company chartered by the state of Maryland to build a railroad that would help link Baltimore with cities to the northeast. In 1838, the B&PD merged with three other railroads to create the first rail link from Philadelphia to Baltimore. (This main line survives today as part of

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.) Brantz' service as a railroad executive is noted on the 1839

Newkirk Viaduct Monument The Newkirk Viaduct Monument (also, Newkirk Monument) is a white marble obelisk in the West Philadelphia neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was installed in 1839 to mark the completion of the Newkirk Viaduct, the first permanent rai ...

in Philadelphia. Brantz died suddenly on Jan. 21, 1838.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brantz, Lewis 19th-century American railroad executives 1760s births 1838 deaths